A trio of extremely experienced stars are in focus at the EHF Finals Men 2023 in Flensburg this weekend: Granollers’ Antonio Garcia Robledo (39 years) is the top scorer still in the competition and can win his first ever international trophy on a club level exactly 10 years after becoming world champion. Füchse Berlin’s Hans Lindberg (41) just broke the all-time scorer record in the Bundesliga and has won the Champions League and EHF Cup already, alongside World Championships and EHF EUROs. Tim Kneule (36) can become the first player ever in the second-tier EHF competition to win the trophy five times.
“Maybe I played my best season of the last years, maybe the best in my whole career,” said Garcia at the EHF Finals media call on Friday, underlining that “Granollers is the club for which my heart always beats.” He played for eight clubs in five different countries — but everything started as a 14-year-old boy at Granollers, where he played in the youth team and then the senior team until 2011. He has been awarded as the best left back in the Asobal league several times.
After a year at Ademar Leon, Garcia went abroad for the first time. He was at Paris Saint-German from 2012 to 2014 and then Pick Szeged before following his compatriot Carlos Ortega to KIF Kolding in Denmark. After a few months at Barcelona in 2017, he moved to CSM Bucuresti for a year, before returning to his home club Granollers for a season then moving to Nantes for a year. He then returned to Granollers and is currently his club’s top scorer in the European League with 81 goals.
“I have the great chance to win my first ever trophy on club level. This is a great motivation,” says Garcia, who was Granollers’ key to winning the second leg of the quarter-final at Flensburg, with eight goals. Now, he is back in Campushalle: “Playing on that level, which I played in the previous months, really boosted my confidence, so maybe my dream comes true.”